by Maisey Yates
Unless her parents spent money supporting her, she didn’t know how she was going to live. She didn’t have job skills. She didn’t have any goals that existed outside of doing exactly what her parents had told her she should. And that was... It was pathetic really. If she had a daughter, what kind of example would that be?
Even if she had a son, it was a pretty awful precedent.
She looked over at the table by the bed and saw that her phone was lit up. Her mother was calling. That meant word had gotten back to her. Allegra had been avoiding the news—and her phone—in addition to Cristian.
Sadly, she could not avoid her mother. That was like attempting to avoid the hand of God.
She reached out, grabbed her phone and swiped her thumb across the screen. “Hello?”
“Allegra, I’m shocked that you have made no effort to get in touch with me.”
Allegra let out a weary sigh. “I’m sorry. Everything has moved very quickly.”
“When you made your little announcement about needing to break off the engagement with Raphael because of your pregnancy, you might have mentioned that Cristian was the father.”
“I wasn’t sure yet what Cristian would want to do. I was afraid to tell him.”
“You should not have been more afraid to tell him than you were to tell your father,” her mother said, her tone icy. “However, it is clear that you have now spoken to him.”
“Yes,” she said, “I have.”
“And it appears he has agreed to marry you, which means that your father will not have to castrate him. Which is good, as he has always been fond of Cristian.”
A strange relief rushed through Allegra. Her mother sounded...well, not angry. “I imagine Cristian is grateful.”
“It was wrong of you to betray Raphael.”
Allegra let out a long, slow breath. “Was it wrong of me to betray him? Or was it wrong of me to get myself into a predicament where I couldn’t simply go ahead and marry him anyway?”
“Obviously the latter,” her mother responded, and Allegra could just picture her waving her hand dismissively. “I imagine that Raphael has not spent the past several years being celibate. Therefore, I imagine he did not expect the same of you. I certainly didn’t. You are a Valenti,” she said that as if it explained everything. “But a Valenti has to be careful to control the situation. And you did not.”
Allegra’s face heated. She felt like she was a child again, being scolded for being too noisy. For not being mindful of their surroundings. For not being aware that there were photographers nearby, and that she needed to sit up straighter, keep her voice down and not take such large bites of food.
“No, I did not.”
“However, I’m very grateful that you did not manage to get yourself with the child of some no-account artist or something equally horrifying, like a footballer.”
“You’re happy that it’s Cristian?”
“I would not say happy, as we now have damage control to see to. But, if you must have an indiscretion, then I suppose having one with a Spanish duke is the lesser of evils.”
“I suppose.”
“Of course,” her mother continued, “Raphael was a prince.”
“And Spain is a larger country than Santa Firenze,” Allegra said, echoing something that Cristian had said earlier.
There was silence on the line for a moment. Then her mother sighed. “I suppose that is true. When is the wedding?”
“Cristian would like to have it a month from now.”
“That does not give us much time to plan.”
Allegra sat down on the bed. “No, but the alternative is me walking down the aisle looking like I’m smuggling a beach ball under my gown.”
“We can’t have that,” her mother said, sounding horrified.
“Indeed not. One month.”
“In Spain, I assume?”
“Of course.” Because Cristian had insisted, and Allegra didn’t care. Actually, Allegra was starting to feel pleased that she wasn’t back home in Italy. Contending with her mother over the phone was much easier than contending with her in person.
“We will be in touch. I shall contact the designer from your first dress about having a second done. Something with a bit more Spanish flair?”
“Something perhaps not fitted at the waist. Beyond that, I don’t really care.”
Her mother missed the sardonic note to her voice. “Perfect. We shall speak soon. And...Allegra, this wedding had better go forward. If it does not your father and I may be forced to cut you off until you’ve learned your lesson.”
And with that, her mother hung up.
Allegra scrubbed her eyes with her fists, feeling gritty and tired, in spite of having done nothing all day. She wondered if it was pregnancy symptoms, or if it was just the effects of being in a strange situation, in very strange circumstances. And dealing with her mother. Who was challenging when she felt well, forget feeling terrible.
Either way, she wanted some food.
She looked in the mirror briefly, before continuing out the door. It didn’t matter that her hair was a mess, or that she was wearing just an oversize button-up shirt and a pair of stretch pants. She had no one to impress. Least of all Cristian.
He had pushed her away after the kiss, after all. Nothing could have signaled his disinterest louder.
And then he had asked if she had been kissed by Raphael, and she had wanted to defend herself. But, the truth was, Raphael had never kissed her. Unless you counted solicitous kisses on the cheek and hand. But they had been...brotherly, if anything. No, not even brotherly. That implied some sort of affection. These had been dutiful. And that had been the end of it.
She supposed she really did need to look at a headline or two. Just to see if there was an indication of how Raphael was doing. She did not like the thought that she might have hurt him. Of course, that would imply she had some sort of hold over his emotions, and she had seen no evidence of that.
“It appears that Raphael has replaced you already.”
Allegra turned around to see Cristian standing in the doorway. He looked... Well, he made her throat dry. He was dressed in nothing but jeans settled low on his hips and a tight black T-shirt. Much more casual than she was accustomed to seeing him. And she found that, on him, casual worked. She felt slightly scrubby by comparison.
“He what?”
“It is the companion headline to our own engagement. You will be pleased to know that we were in fact being stalked by the paparazzi, as I suspected. And your kiss made for quite the definitive exclamation mark on the whole thing.”
He reached out, handing her the newspaper he was holding. She looked down, and her face heated. There, in bold print, was a photograph of her kissing Cristian. Her fingers were threaded through his hair, and she was leaning in, while he looked to be holding her steady, his hands resting on her hips. Even in the photograph, the giant engagement ring he’d presented her with was visible. The perfect engagement photo. Even if it was a lie.
Then her eye drifted to the photo next to it. In the picture was a blonde woman, wearing a baggy university sweatshirt, and looking angry. Next to her was Prince Raphael, wearing large dark sunglasses and a suit. He had his arm around her and appeared to be ushering her onto his private plane.
“She is an American,” Cristian said.
“No,” Allegra responded. “That can’t be.”
“Yes. An American student. From Colorado. Bailey. Princess Bailey, as she would be known if they were to marry.” Cristian sounded amused, which was irritating because he was never amused.
“Now you truly are lying. That does not sound like a princess, that sounds like a beagle.”
He laughed, a dark, sensual sound. “Are you jealous?” He sounded even more amused at that.
She couldn’t pretend it wasn’t strange that Raphael was engaged already. And to someone who was so different than she was. But then, while Cristian had a title and similar coloring to Raphael, that was the e
xtent of their similarities.
Raphael was circumspect at least. Cristian was... Cristian.
“I’m not jealous,” she sniffed. “Just surprised. My reputation, my family connections, were so important to him.” She looked back at the photograph of him with the rather enraged-looking woman. “She’s nothing like that.”
“She is not. And, as little as I know Raphael, your pedigree did seem important.”
“Now you’re making me sound like a beagle.”
“It is only the truth. I came up with the idea to introduce your father to Raphael after he was telling me about the challenges he was having finding a wife. I made the introductions and the rest was set.”
“Which is why you’ve been all over me about my behavior ever since then. Except...wow, the bitter irony. It’s your fault the engagement was broken. All your looming and sardonic comments were for nothing, because at the end of all things, you were the one who destroyed what you set up. I’d laugh, except it’s hard to be too smug in my current position.”
“I should say so,” he said, his tone dry. “Though I must point out, were I not the one compromising your engagement, you likely would have found another man.”
“Who might have practiced safe sex.”
The look he treated her to nearly burned her from the inside out. “What are you doing down here? You’ve been hiding up in your room for days.”
“I’m hungry. And it isn’t feeding hours at the zoo yet. So, I thought I would see what I could get for myself.”
“Do you feel as though you are in captivity?”
She let out a long slow breath, and walked past him, making her way to the fridge. “I am being kept in a house in a city and a country that I don’t know my way around. How else am I supposed to feel?”
“I told you that you might want to take your dramatics down a couple of notches.”
She huffed. “And I told you I reserve the right to my dramatics.”
“Another impasse we find ourselves at.”
She paused in her hunt through the fridge and looked at him, arching a brow. “Indeed.”
“I do not wish for you to feel as though you’re captive.”
“If you were waiting for those words to magically make me feel differently, you will have to wait longer.”
“I was not. I would like to take you to the beach.”
“The one just outside.”
“No. I have a beach house. In a more private location, one that you might enjoy.”
She tamped down the surge of giddiness that rioted through her. She did love the beach. She always had. But she didn’t like crowds. It was almost like he knew. “I love the beach,” she said.
“I know.”
His words settled between them, significant and far larger inside her than they should be, making it hard for her to breathe.
“We will have to fly,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Well, we did just fly to Spain a little less than a week ago.”
“You are officially jet set. Consider it a consolation prize as you have lost your formerly pending princess status.”
She swallowed hard, trying to ignore the tightness in her throat, in her chest. Trying to ignore the fact that this felt heavy, and significant, when it absolutely should not.
“Well, as consolation prizes go, I suppose it’s a pretty good one.”
“Excellent. I will call ahead and make arrangements, and we will leave tonight.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“I would rather surprise you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
CRISTIAN WATCHED ALLEGRA’S face as they walked into the large, oceanfront home on the island of Kauai. It was not as large as his home in Spain, but it was private. Shrouded by palm and banyan trees at the front, and facing white sands and velvet-blue water in the back.
It was his own personal, private paradise. Which felt slightly over the top, even to him, considering that he owned a piece of paradise already in his native Spain.
This belonged only to him. Not to his blood. Not to his family. He supposed the appeal lay there.
The paparazzi would not find them here. And it would, perhaps, benefit both him and Allegra to be on neutral, private ground, if only for a while.
There was no point in making her miserable. That wasn’t his goal. They were going to have to deal with each other, come to some consensus on how to raise their child. They didn’t need to be embroiled in a constant battle.
“What do you think?” he asked, growing impatient waiting for her to voice her response.
“It’s beautiful. Of course it is.”
“But do you like it?”
“I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii. And I do like it.”
A surge of triumph poured through his veins. He had known that she liked the idea of going somewhere tropical. He also knew that she had not been. She did not possess the independence of her older brother, and did not travel quite as freely. She had gone on strange family vacations with her former fiancé. To the East Coast of the United States, and to the Amalfi coast. But no one had ever taken her to the kind of tropical island he had heard her wax poetic about at the dinner table one night when she’d been in high school.
Now someone had. He had.
“Good,” he said.
“How long have you had a house here? I don’t remember you ever mentioning it.”
“I bought it quite some time ago. Five or six years at least. And I have done my very best to keep it a secret. As you saw, the paparazzi are all too willing to try and get a window into my life using any means necessary. This, I have managed to keep to myself. I don’t have to worry about photographers or indeed anyone invading my privacy.”
“Why are the paparazzi so fascinated with you? I’ve never heard of you setting a single foot out of line, Cristian. I understand why they chase Renzo. He seems to court controversy. You don’t.”
“I am titled. I am part of an old family. Also, my mother does engage in rather scandalous behavior. I suppose just by being her son I am a bit interesting. And the fact that I cause very little scandal considering who I’m related to is also notable.”
He watched her face closely to see what her response was to this. She must have some awareness of his mother’s exploits. He rarely spoke to the woman, but she was his mother. And while he found her behavior reckless at best, he could scarcely blame her. Life at the castillo had been oppressive. When his father had been alive everyone had lived quietly. Doing their very best not to trigger the hammer of his father’s anger. To keep themselves from being crushed beneath the weight of it.
He had only gotten worse after Cristian was born. That was how the story had always been told. By household staff, by his mother. Fueled by jealous suspicions that his accidental heir might not truly be his.
He had been obsessed by the thought, but had never ordered a test for fear of scandal. And so he had simply spent his wrath upon the child he suspected might be a betrayal to the bloodline.
Once the duke died it was only understandable that his widow would seek liberation. And she had. Away from Spain. Away from her son. And she had never once looked back.
It had been nearly a decade since he’d spoken to his mother, his calls finally going unanswered, whatever guilt she felt over her initial abandonment easing enough that she no longer felt obligated to pretend she missed her only child.
It didn’t matter to him at all. Any distance he could find from that time of his life suited him fine.
“I suppose that makes sense,” Allegra said, her tone carefully neutral.
“No additional commentary on my mother’s behavior?”
“Why would I comment on it? I don’t know her.”
“Because people who live life in the public eye are always inviting comment. Every time they breathe, are they not?”
“I’ve never felt like that was fair,” she said.
“You are in the minority.”
“Then I am. But my life has always been dictated by the fact that people cared what I did. People that I will never meet. My mother has always been consumed with appearances. It was funny, I had a conversation with her about you. About you being the father of my child. She was not upset to find out that I had slept with you, Cristian. She was only upset that I had caused a scandal.”
His brain was completely hung up on the part about them sleeping together. Because truly, they never had. They’d found release up against the wall, a release that had been long in coming for him. But they had never slept together. They’d never had the luxury of lying next to each other, skin to skin, their legs tangled together as he smoothed his hands over her abundant curves.
His body hardened at the illicit fantasy. A fantasy he would not carry out.
“I suppose that is common,” he said, in lieu of taking her into his arms and pressing his lips against hers. “To live life as though all that exists is done in the light. While we all obsess about things done in the dark.”
Color mounted in her cheeks, and he knew that she, like himself, was thinking of things the two of them had done in the dark.
“I suppose. I’m very tired. Perhaps we can talk again at dinner?”
“You’re so desperate to get rid of me.” It was not a question. He could see that she needed distance from him. And he desperately needed it from her. Still, he didn’t feel inclined to press for that distance. Instead he wanted to keep her close. Wanted to keep baiting the beast inside him. Just so he could jump against the bars of his cage.
“Why would I want to get rid of you?”
“So that you don’t kiss me again.”
He did not know what was possessing him to push her. To push himself. To test limits between them that he knew from experience were quite easily broken.
He had never been a man who allowed himself to be ruled by passions. He’d had a few lovers before his marriage, but no great affairs. And then, he had chosen Sylvia to be his wife based on their mutual compatibility.
He had also cared for her. A great deal. But she had not made him feel like he was fighting a war with himself.